Spacetime

So I’m starting to understand a little bit more about spacetime. Basically it’s the idea that Einstein came up with based on his assumption that the speed of light is always constant and nothing can go faster. (this assumption actually makes me uncomfortable, but more on that later) So Einstein said that in order to keep the speed of light constant, space and time must bend and change as one.

The thing is, no one really knows what spacetime is.

I’m hoping to look at more quantum theory and possibly string theory and try to link them, though it might be a dead end.

It would take multiple posts to explain this and I don’t think I’m grasping the whole concept, so I’m going to skip the explanation (for now.)

Post navigation

2 comments on “Spacetime”

Spacetime is really a blurred field, but as more things begin to emerge in the scientific world and new discoveries like graphene and the Higgs field take shape these ideas will become less hypothetical and more theoretical. If you’re confused about spacetime, there are some really great videos on Youtube from Michio Kaku, Neil deGrasse Tyson as well as some Ted talks. This is a very awesome field and you’ll be knee-deep in information soon. Some theoretical physicists spend their entire time learning abiut string theory.

Obviously, what we are talking about is special relativity (as opposed to general relativity, which Einstein developed later to account for gravity). Now, there have been several theories on what exactly space time is, from Newton’s idea of the stage and the spinning bucket, to Bohr, Marx, and other 19th century physicist’s idea of absolute rest. Recently, based on special and general relativity, we believe we may have solved the bucket problem. As you mentioned, space-time is not a stage; it is a constantly flexing framework that adapts to the universe, and is the universe. You may have heard the expression “the fabric of space time.” While not a perfect analogy, it is fairly apt. The idea of something that is not something is, as has just been demonstrated, nigh on impossible to express in normal human languages. Only mathematically can such concepts be expressed accurately. I would encourage you to research Newton’s bucket; it should turn up some interesting results on this topic of space-time, including things about String theory, P-Brains, M-Theory, and the 11 dimensions of space and time.